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Climbing out of the bed, I pad over to my dresser. Nudity might not be a big deal to my kind of supe, but I already have a reputation in Accalia. For the most part, I’ve earned it. Doesn’t mean that I’m going to prance around naked. The catty gossips—ironic since every Mountainside packmate is wolf—would love to have more ammunition to toss my way.
I can just hear them now.
Did you see the Danvers girl?
Still so desperate to attract a mate, she’s walking around in her skin.
Make sure she doesn’t set her eyes on your male because Luna knows that, if she made a play for the Alpha even after he had his intended, none of the rest of our mates are safe.
Because that’s me. Trish Danvers, home-wrecker. Not even a home-wrecker, really.Attemptedhome-wrecker because, no matter how hard I tried to convince Ryker Wolfson that he should choose me over his fated mate, I never stood a chance.
I tried, though. Can’t deny that. For most of my mature years—since I was about twenty and I decided my best chance at forever was with the future Alpha of the pack—I was fixated on making Ryker mine. It’s all I wanted. The security of being the female alpha of the pack, and the protection of the most powerful wolf around. Plus, Ryker is gorgeous, and I honestly believed that I loved him.
Just like I believed that I would be a better mate for him than his own…
Since he was our Alpha’s son, I always knew that I had until Henry passed and Ryker succeeded him to convince Ryker to choose me. It’s how it’s done. Alphas rarely take mates until they’re installed as leader of the pack, and once they are, their Luna Ceremony follows closely on the heels of the one that makes them Alpha. I thought I had time—and then Henry died in an accident, and Ryker became Alpha when I was barely twenty-four.
And that’s when all of Accalia discovered that the Luna whispered that his fated mate was the daughter of the Lakeview Pack’s Alpha, an innocent-appearing Omega who was only a year older than I was.
At first, I thought I was doing them both a favor. A formidable alpha wolf, Ryker would’ve eaten an omega she-wolf alive. Especially blonde-haired, golden-eyed Gemma, with her big smile and her bouncy curls. But then… Ryker never wanted me. Despite all of my efforts, I knew it. His attention was always elsewhere, and the first time I saw his dark gold eyes land on Gem when she wasn’t watching, I knew.
She wasn’t only his fated mate. She was his chosen mate. I’d lost him before I ever had him—and I was heartbroken.
Does that excuse what happened after? How I listened to our traitorous Beta’s whispers when Shane Loup told me that Gem wasn’t really an Omega, but a rare alpha instead? Or how I blackmailed Ryker into choosing me or I would tell the whole shifter world about her? Not to mention the countless ways I bullied our Alpha’s intended, telling her thatIwas Ryker’s chosen mate when he made it obvious time and time again that he only had eyes for her?
No. No, it doesn’t. And while all of that happened two years ago, when I yank open the second drawer of my dresser and see the folded piles of sundresses packed inside, my stomach goes tight. I’d gone through a phase where I thought, if I styled my light brown hair in curls, and I pulled girly sundresses on that looked like Gem’s when she was still passing as an Omega, maybe Ryker would see what he was missing. It wasn’t that unusual. A lot of she-wolves stick to simple dresses because they’re easy to remove when we’re getting ready to shift. But me… I preferred blouses and jeans until I made the change to attract Ryker.
I was wearing a pale pink sundress the day that Aidan Barrow asked me if I would meet him down at the garage where the pack vehicles are stored. It was destroyed, slashed up and covered in blood after he attacked me, and when I panicked and shifted after he tried to maneuver me into one of the open trunks, the dress was nothing but bloody tatters beneath me. I got a few swipes in with my claws and fangs before he shot me full of quicksilver—something he did repeatedly to ensure I was sedated for the whole trip to the West Coast—but that was the last time I wore one of my dresses.
While I was kept in a cage, I stayed in my fur. Only once did I shift to skin, and that’s because the Wicked Wolf hit me with the full weight of his alpha stare. I couldn’t refuse him, though I threatened to hurt myself if he tried to keep me from shifting back to my wolf. He had no reason to refuse. I was a pawn, a bargaining chip, a way to lure Ryker and Gem into the trap he’d set for them. I might not be able to talk while I’m a wolf, but I can hear, and I know that he only took me on the odd chance that Ryker developed some feelings for me.
After all, I spent years telling anyone who would listen that, one day, we’d be mates. I never thought it would put a target on my back, though. I just thought, if I was persistent, I could make my own happily-ever-after.
I was wrong.
I haven’t thrown the sundresses away. I keep meaning to, but whenever I pull open this drawer, after my stomach tightens, my immediate reaction is to shove it closed. That’s what I do now, wishing I could just remember that my blouses and t-shirts are in the next drawer down, with my jeans hanging up in my closet.
Grabbing some fresh clothes, I hurriedly get dressed. Only the promise of a breakfast I didn’t have to make would get me moving this quickly, and minutes after I woke up, I’m shuffling in my bare feet toward the back door of my cabin.
I inch it open, pushing it the rest of the way when I see the covered plate sitting on my back porch. Closing my eyes, I breathe in deep. I smell bacon, yes, but that’s not all.
Something musky, something woodsy, with a hint of sharp pine. Like Christmas in May, my heart skips a beat.
I know exactly who left this plate for me. And because it’s from him, I can accept it without any hesitation.
So I do.
Food has a special meaning to shifters. In most packs, it’s the Alpha that provides for his community. In individual families, it’s the parents’ responsibility to feed their pups. That’s just accepted. But when a male or a female of mating age offers food to a prospective partner, it says: I will protect you, I will feed you, and you’ll want for nothing if I’m around.
Not me. I’m pretty sure I’m the only exception to that in all of Accalia.
I know the meal is from Duke. If anyone else left me a plate of—I peek under the foil—bacon and scrambled eggs, eating it is the same as signaling that I’m interested in pursuing a mating with them. It’s letting another wolf take care of me. But Duke… he’s been taking care of me for months now, and not because he has any kind of sexual interest in me. He treats me more like a pup that needs to be guarded and guided, and he has since the moment he found me savage and terrified in that cage in California.
Well, now I know why I woke up. It wasn’t the food, was it? It was him bringing it to me. He must’ve just dropped it off, too, because if he’d been around longer? I never would’ve had the nightmare to begin with—even if it does explain why I dreamed that a massive grey wolf was rescuing me.
When Duke is near, I sleep peacefully. And when he isn’t… I wish he was.
Because the big delta wolf is the only thing that keeps the bad dreams away, even if I have no idea why.
